U.S. stock futures indicated a moderately higher open Wednesday with tech shares set to extend Tuesday’s rally.

The chairman and CEO of tech bellwether Cisco, John Chambers, said he has grown “even more comfortable” with the networking giant’s long-term growth rate.

In U.S. economic news, nonfarm business productivity increased at a 1.9% annualized rate from October to December, the U.S. Labour Department said today, up slightly from the previous estimate of a 1.8% rise. It had gone up 6.3% in the third quarter, which was also revised up.

Here at home, the Canadian dollar opened with a gain of 0.30 cent at US100.96¢, following a decline of 0.62 cent Tuesday after the Bank of Canada cut its policy rate by half a percentage point to 3.5%.

In today’s earnings news, Costco Wholesale posted a 31% increase in second-quarter net income on strong international growth and continued consumer flight toward discount retailers.

Oil futures were back over US$100 this morning. Light sweet crude for April delivery was up 83¢ to US$100.35 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


Overseas, European stock markets were higher, with the FTSE 100 up 0.5% near midday in London. Germany’s DAX rose 1.3% and the Paris CAC-40 advanced 1.2%.

Asian stock markets closed weakly. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.2% to 12,972.1 as data showed Japanese capital spending declined 7.7% in the October-December quarter compared with a year earlier, the steepest decline in more than five years.

Toronto stocks tumbled Tuesday, even as the Bank of Canada slashed the overnight rate by 50 basis points.

The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 67.57 points, or 0.50%, at 13,476.81.

The junior S&P/TSX Venture composite index fell 42.54 points, or 1.52%, to end the session at 2,752.03.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average closed down 45.10 points, or 0.37%, at 12,213.80 after being down more than 200 points earlier in the day.

The S&P 500 shed 4.59 points, or 0.34%, at 1,326.75.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.68 points, or 0.07%, to end the session at 2,260.28.